[asa] keeping things in perspective

This will be my final post today; I'm at the limit.

Sometimes we're accused here on the ASA list (perhaps not always wrongly) of being a bit harsh on people whose views don't resonate with those of many of the "old timers" (I'm applying that term to myself, please note) here. We do our best (most of the time) to avoid that. If you doubt that we're doing a decent job, then consider what is being said somewhere else about someone who, like us here, is a Christian who gives voice to his convictions about God, nature, and Scripture. I mean John Mark Reynolds, a highly committed Christian philosopher who heads the honors college at Biola University. He's a believer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition -- which has been a bit unsettling at Biola. It would not be unsettling at Messiah, Seattle Pacific, and a handful of other evangelical colleges, but it would be unsettling at most. In any case, Reynolds is all but burned at the stake on the web site I will direct you to below. Strong threats are also made against J. P Moreland an!
 d Bill Craig. Their principal sin, apparently, is thinking itself -- they're just too interested in philosophy to have a genuine Christian commitment, apparently.

Ironically, Reynolds is a YEC; Moreland is probably an OEC, though at one point he might have been a YEC (he used to teach at Liberty University). And Bill Craig is, well, Bill Craig -- arguably the top conservative evangelical apologist around today. It's places like the blog I'll send you to, that give Christians a bad name, not only in academic circles (which are clearly scorned in this blog) but also in pretty much any circle that doesn't have its head in a whole somewhere.

I simply thought it could be helpful to keep things in a wider perspective, now and then. The ASA, obviously, is an organization whose expressed mission and purpose is to be a place where people like Reynolds, Moreland, and Craig can explore ideas and express opinions about faith and learning, ideas and opinions that might be on the Index of Prohibited Books, if this blogger (Stephen Macasil) had his wish. I can't imagine what he'd be saying about me, Cameron Wybrow, Randy Isaac, or Loren Haarsma. Does he have a bottle of even stronger vitriol stored somewhere, that he uses on anyone even slightly more liberal than Bill Craig?

And some people think I'm just too coy, by filing as a conscientious objector in the culture wars....

Here's that URL. http://biblicalthought.com/blog/john-mark-reynolds-to-the-rescue/

Ted

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Received on Mon Jul 20 15:04:15 2009